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102 responses
Scene: A discussion on family roles in Relief Society. A sister (sitting next to me, nonetheless), pipes up with, “I heard something that really made an impression on me. You see, the man is the head of the household. But the woman is like the neck. She guides and controls the head.” The sister went on. I was lost in the realization that the warning I had read on the Exponent II list about the proliferation of this analogy in Church classes in the wake of My Big Fat Greek Wedding was not, in fact, an urban legend. Read More
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So why do I always resist the rather obvious point. The Sunstone crowd is greying, the Mormon history crowd is greying. . . . There is an easy answer, I suppose. I’m from the old Sunstone crowd. I’m greying. Maybe I don’t like facing the obvious. But I really don’t think that’s it exactly. Read More
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I spent a fair amount of time Sunday evening reading David Bigler’s book Forgotten Kingdom: The Mormon Theocracy in the American West, 1847-1896nk that Bigler’s book is written in the best tradition of local antiquarianism rather than professional history per se. There is very little attempt (even by history writing standards) of synthesis or analysis. Rather he puts a high premium on lively narrative and close attention to local detail ? e.g. he tells you the current street addresses of the locations of skirmishes or events from the days of Deseret and in the footnotes bemoans the vandalism of historic… Read More
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4 responses
From now on, we are going to try to have two guest bloggers simultaneously and stagger their appearances so that we have a new person coming on board each week. Thus, while Julie will continue to blog for another week, we have a new guest blogger coming on board today: Susan Staker. Susan is a graduate of BYU (B.A.) and the University of Utah (M.A.). She is also ABD in literary theory from the University of Utah. She is the co-author with Carol Cornwall Madsen of Sisters and Little Saints, a history of the founding of the Primary. (Amazon.com erroneously… Read More
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16 responses
We are all familiar with the words of the Savior to the Nephites after quoting Isaiah 54: “ye ought to search these things. Yea, a commandment I give unto you that ye search these things diligently; for great are the words of Isaiah.” (3 Nephi 23:1). In preparation for another week of Isaiah study (this is my third time teaching the book of Isaiah, the two prior attempts being in Gospel Doctrine), I decided to give in to my inner skeptic and ask this Seminary Thought Question: What is so great about the words of Isaiah? Read More
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17 responses
We’ve talked before about callings and authority; I’d like to talk here about something closely associated with the previous discussion, but which also has a peculiar dynamic all its own: callings and skill. Read More
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7 responses
Lesson 14: Enos, Jarom, Omni, Words of Mormon We will concentrate on Enos 1-18 and several verses in Omni. Read More
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27 responses
This morning my wife went with the sister missionaries to teach a discussion. The investigator was an intelligent, well-educated woman who was quite religious and very biblically knowledgeable. (We live in the South.) She had an interesting concern when the sisters taught her the plan of salvation: Not enough people were going to hell. Read More
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44 responses
A while back I commented on the greying of Mormon studies. I just ran across something that further confirmed my initial intuition. According to a survey collected at the 2003 Sunstone Symposium, the age break down of Sunstoners looks like this: 6% — Under age 25 7% — age 25-34 8% — age 35-44 14% — age 45-54 35% — age 55-64 30% — age 65 or older Wow! Think of what that means. Well over half of the participants are over the age of 55. A whopping 79% of Sunstoners are over the age of 45, and under the… Read More
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14 responses
Cirila and I are pleased to announce the arrival of our daughter, Mia Elizabeth Call. She was born early yesterday morning in Berkeley, weighing in at 7 lbs, 1 oz. Mom and baby are doing great. Here’s an early photo: Read More
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38 responses
Here are a few recent comments about teaching in the Church: Jim F.: “As you can see, I’m skeptical about Church teaching in general. I hope to see things otherwise, and it seems to me that the Church is interested in making them otherwise, but we’ve got a ways to go.” Gordon Smith: “I am very frustrated by the teaching that goes on in the Church. . . . I remember Dallin Oaks talking about the poor teaching in the Church, but I do not remember a very coherent vision of where we need to go. In any event, if… Read More
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61 responses
Aaron Brown has an interesting post (re-cycled from the ldslaw list) on whether or not we can draw inferences about God’s political priorities from institutional church involvement. Although Aaron is (needlessly in my opinion) coy in his post, the bottom line is that he thinks that the disjunction between Church political priorities and what was really important has been so wide that we shouldn’t draw inferences about God’s preferences from Church statements. (See Aaron’s comments here) Read More
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4 responses
There is a norm in the blogosphere that every ten thousand visitors or so, a blog is supposed to engage in a bit of statistical navel gazing. We are pleased to point out that in the last day or two we passed the 30,000 visitors mark. As some of you may know, this blog began its life as a joint venture between some of the most obnoxious posters on the ldslaw e-mail list. When I look back at those heady days of long ago (November 19, 2003) when Time & Seasons first hit the internet, I can see how far… Read More
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17 responses
Two BYU political science professors denounce the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment. One BYU law professor defends it. Both are solid expressions of their respective points of view. Responding to them will, of course, turn this thread into a debate over the nature of marriage–but before that happens, I’d like to point out that marriage itself plays almost no role in their actual claims. Read More
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10 responses
This from Richard John Neuhaus at First Things (scroll way down): [A] recent national survey asked administrators and students about the First Amendment. Only 21 percent of administrators and 30 percent of students knew that the First Amendment guarantees religious freedom. Only six percent of administrators and two percent of students knew that religious freedom is the first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment. Only 41 percent of administrators and 32 percent of students believe that religious people should be permitted to advocate their views by whatever legal means available. On the other hand, 74 percent of students and 87… Read More
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21 responses
If you check out the links from “Kristine Haglund Harris” on the side bar you will notice that, depending on which of her three names you clikc on, you will be taken to either the website of The Republican National Committee, The National Rifle Association, or Bush/Cheney’04. This choice of links constitutes extreme action on the part of one of the site administrators in an attempt to get Kristine to send in her biographical information and a picture, so that we can get an introduction page for her like the rest of the permanent bloggers. In the mean time, we… Read More
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30 responses
I am feeling testy today, so I thought that I would post on a subject I have been thinking about for a while: the most over rated text in Mormon studies. Perhaps it is part of being raised in a prophetic, leader-revering culture, but there is a tendency on the part of Mormon intellectuals toward hagiography. Not of church leaders of course. (Being Mormon intellectuals has liberated them from anything so crass.) Rather, I am talking about hagiography by Mormon intellectuals of Mormon intellectuals. (See the article on Quinn.) Read More
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25 responses
Last week’s Sunday School lesson, like many in our ward, was a string of scripture verses taken out of context, interspersed with quotations from random General Authorities on the keywords in each verse. Many talks assume a similar format these days. It occurred to me that these lessons and talks would not have been possible even five years ago, and that perhaps we ought to spend a little time paying attention to the changes wrought by lds.org. Read More
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21 responses
We’ve got time for one more navel-gazing blogosphere (err, bloggernacle choir) post, and here it is. I’m now accepting nominations for Post of the Month for March 2004. Here are the rules: Read More
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23 responses
So this weekend, while lounging in bed milking a minor illness for all it was worth, I stumbled upon one of the best talks I have ever heard: BYU English Professor Steven Walker’s “Humor in the Bible,” which you can listen to or read from www.byutv.org (Just search by title under Find a Talk.) Read More
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8 responses
Now that we may have an idea of what to call the Mormon blogosphere (it seems like many people are favoring “Bloggernacle Choir“), let’s mention some posts I found interesting: -Jeremy has a great post over at Orson’s Telescope discussing 1970’s antifeminist literature. (Key quote: “You must first dispense with any air of strength and ability, of competence and fearlessness or efficiency and acquire instead an air of frail dependency upon men to take care of you.”). -Bob Caswell explores the weighty issue of missionary work that consciously avoids unfavored ethnic groups. -At BCC, Aaron Brown wonders if we don’t… Read More
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53 responses
The Revealer, a religion blog affiliated with NYU and the Pew Trusts, notes that while the Jewish and Catholic blogospheres have their own names (jBlog and St. Blog’s Parish, respectively) the Mormon blogosphere lacks any sort of nifty moniker. Such a deplorable situation clearly cannot be allowed to continue! So, what exactly should we call the LDS blogosphere, which is getting rather large, interesting, and multifacted? (See our sidebar for some links). Here are a few ideas of mine: The Blog of Mormons Blogham Young University Salt Blog City Latter-Day Blogs LDB’s (?) My personal favorite is Latter-Day Blogs. It… Read More
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19 responses
About fifteen years ago, Harold Bloom — a freakishly brilliant and productive literary critic at Yale — turned his attention to American religion and fell in love with Joseph Smith. Among other things, Bloom identified Joseph’s “religious genius” with what he called the basic insight of Jewish history: truely successful new religions transform themselves into a new people. In essence, he argued that one of the things that sets Mormonism off from other “American” religions (or as Bloom would say, manifestations of “The American Religion”) is that Mormons, unlike say Southern Baptists, became a people. There is a sense in… Read More
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15 responses
A couple of weeks ago Kaimi posted a question about God’s perfection and eternal progress. That led to various discussions, including discussions of foreknowledge and what it means for him to forget the past. I don’t want to resurrect that whole thread, but I’ve got some more or less random responses to some of the issues that I wanted to post and only now have time to do so. Read More
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4 responses
Since the last request for technical assistance was a resounding success, I’m hoping to duplicate the feat. The current question involves a moderately advanced (or at least, beyond my current skill) movable type question and a bit of HTML (the query string function). Here goes: Read More
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4 responses
Lesson 13: Jacob 5-7 We will concentrate on chapter 5, the longest chapter in the Book of Mormon. However, because chapters 4 and 5 were one chapter in the first edition of the Book of Mormon and I think that Jacob 4:15-18 are an essential to understanding the allegory, I suggest that you read them as part of the lesson. Rather than the usual verse by verse list of thought questions, here are two outlines of the chapter followed by a few general thought questions on chapter 5 and then several questions on chapters 6-7. Read More
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24 responses
I’ve just returned from a week-long stay in Utah, my longest visit to the Mormon Heimat in quite a while. My observations follow: Read More